Marisacat

Interloper 17 April 2011

Fife Scotland: This inquisitive dog was left stunned when a playful young seal gave him a friendly slap on the cheek after he bounded into the sea during a game of fetch. The seal patted the boxer on the face during the encounter after he chased a tennis ball that had been thrown into the ocean by his owner. The young dog found the baby seal with its head poking out the water and instead of retrieving his ball, he circled his intriguing discovery. [Lynn Morris/Solent]

yeah – and there’s been a nasty little thread over at SMBIVA about fear of female sexuality. Kind of a mini gang bang. ms-x alone for about 45 comments (For wahtever reason I cannot comment there, it has been raised with them, and they just kind of throw their hands up, and so, I gave up a couple, three years ago)…

All I can say about Amy is she is not a fluid writer, it is always a bit plodding. But hardly a sin.

I’ll check it out. I’ve never been able to comment at SMBIVA for navigating that fucking “Hillary’s middle name ? humor us thing”. I’ve tried repeatedly and just gave up and frankly didn’t give a damn enough to shoot off an email to ask.

Hmm, I see now it’s a post from their email list My take is pretty much this: scratch a man, you find misogyny and that’s not all the habitually self flagellating male. That’s the thing in a nutshell. A nutshell BTW that we men can’t seem to shake without wondering at one time or other if it is relatively on the small side.

What they know about human behavior could fit on the head of a pin, IMHO. It boggles my mind that so many dudes can live on this earth for so long and yet be such shitty listeners and observers of what’s happening right in front of their noses.

And seriously, if you can persuade yourself that oppression is more force of habit than genuine, conscious malice, that means you have to let the oppressors off the hook? I am highly amused here, imagining what would happen to the tone and content of this website if that suddenly became a legitimate excuse for downplaying and/or ignoring oppressions other than those based on who has a dick and who doesn’t. Oh, the liberals don’t feel any malice towards the people they bomb. They just think this way out of force of habit, the poor dears. We really shouldn’t spend so much time picking on their bullshit ideas about foreign policy. La de da…

You guys are a laugh riot. It must be either that or my deep-seated masochism that keeps me coming back to read your oh-so-enlightening, never-heard-before-elsewhere thoughts on Teh Wimmens.

Here is a comment to that new thread (now I have to go read the dmaned post)

Ted Stein said…

I used to volunteer with torture survivors (tassc.org) and met Amy Goodman when she visited them. Democracy NOW! is one of the only major media outlets that had any interest in bringing survivors of state violence into the conversation surrounding the US torture regime. She continues that important role of including the voices of the victims and survivors with the article you linked to.

In fact, she is a survivor of state violence herself, having been assaulted by state security forces in East Timor while bravely covering the massacre of demonstrators. Her long record of investigative journalism and numerous arrests (including in the US) speaks for itself.

I think you misread her, and probably on purpose. As others above have pointed out, she is highlighting hypocrisy with US interventions, not advocating consistent interventions. Her point is that the US government is actively supporting the slaughter of the people of Bahrain. Not that the US government should bomb the people of Bahrain.

She isn’t even requesting Obama “speak out” on Bahrain. She is pointing out that the same justification Obama is using for bombing Lybia, applies to human rights violations the US is actively supporting.

Amy Goodman is no cruise missile liberal and you, IOZ, are not even worthy of shining her shoes.

Oh, good luck with it all! I have to take kid the elder in for surgery tomorrow to get the rods removed from his leg and some bone injected into his cyst…I am trying to stay calm but am dreading it all and just want it to be over and have him back here at home resting comfortably in his bed!!

Thanks, m! Much appreciated! The stupid hospital called this morning (his surgery is scheduled for tomorrow a.m., have to be there at 5:30) and informed me that I would need to bring $542.75 for a “time of service” payment.

Needless to say, I was livid. This surgery has been scheduled for months and they wait until 19 hours beforehand to tell me that I need too bring in the equivalent of 40% of my monthly salary!!I’m bringing them $100.

This surgery is going to cost about $3000 OUT OF POCKET…why in the fucking hell do we have insurance, that’s what I want to know. I hate hate hate this stupid country.

Yep. Just got a call from the anesthesiologist’s office as well. They too want “time of service” payment. The lady said that they would just send me a bill if I didn’t bring any $$ with me to the hospital….

I’m bringing $100 cash. They can take it or leave it. Then, I am going to focus on my kid and my kid only, until I have him safely back home.

Well, I am well and duly screwed…there was that last month AND the state of Texas managed to expose 3 databases from the Texas Workforce Commission (our unemployment office) and both of the state’s retirement/pension funds. What is scarier to me about my TWC info. being out there is that those fuckers have my banking information and the boys’ info, as well as my name and social….

geesh. Last I remember him he slunk off the stage in Iraq, post Abu Ghraib… a whipping boy for a nightmare, but still, he looked whipped.

RICARDO SANCHEZ TO RUN FOR U.S. SENATE IN TEXAS – AS A DEM.! Alex Burns’ “Morning Score”:

Retired Lt. Gen Ricardo Sanchez, the former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, is expected to run as a Democrat for the seat being vacated by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.). Sanchez, 59, was born in Rio Grande City, Tex., and lives in San Antonio. Democrats hope to make Texas one of their six takeover targets for 2012 (“Six in ’12”), but the party has lacked a candidate. An Army veteran of three decades, Sanchez handed over command in Iraq after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, though he was not implicated. McClatchy’s Maria Recio first reported the news of the general’s possible bid: “[Former Lt. Gov. Ben] Barnes, one of the state’s last high-profile Democrats, said, … ‘He’s the one guy who could unite the Hispanic vote. He’ll get the conservative Hispanic businessman.'” http://bit.ly/ex2CbC

love that line “not implicated”. Previous to the disclosures he had been up for a 4th star, all but assured. Soon he was talked of derisively as “a battlefield command”. The war had conferred status on him that other eras would not.

THE BIG PICTURE – “GOP wave reshapes nation’s agenda state by state,” by AP’s Ann Sanner in Columbus and Calvin Woodward in Washington, with contributors in 18 other states:

“State by state, Republicans are moving at light speed on a conservative agenda they would have had no hope of achieving before the big election gains of November. The dividends are apparent after only a few months in office, and they go well beyond the spending cuts forced on states by the fiscal crunch and tea party agitation. Republican governors and state legislators are bringing abortion restrictions into law from Virginia to Arizona, acting swiftly to expand gun rights north and south, pushing polling-station photo ID laws that are anathema to Democrats and taking on public sector unions anywhere they can.

All this as Democrats find themselves cowed or outmaneuvered … In many states, they are unable to do much except hope that voters will see these actions as an overreach by the Republicans they elected – an accidental revolution to be reversed down the road.” http://apne.ws/fp1vQy

No plan but capitulation.

And jusst a few years ago, the Dems were bellowing that the R party was diminished to a mere regional party: The South.

[T]here are reports that the Japanese government has been bulldozing hot (radioactive) fuel into the ground, fuel which was blasted as far as a kilometer from the reactor complex (most likely, from the explosion in reactor unit 3).

Of course, retrieving the fuel isn’t easy since you can’t go near even a little pellet of it. It’s speculated they were “just” bulldozing a “safe” (all things are relative, aren’t they?) route to and from the reactor, and plan to pick up the fuel pellets later.

This smacks of a setup. S&P ratings (remember how good they were at rating AIG, Lehman, etc) don’t mean S*&%. I think somebody either in or outside decided this is how they will lobby for more deficit reduction.

Yes time for the looters to nab the last remnants in bank. Depositers, poor saps, get @ 2%: so for some retiree needing 20k a year they need pushing a million liquid. Ahem, in bank. Or Treasuries. Another coupla WINNERS.
::

So. Against Barry’s Ooga Booga and propaganda machine?
Oh, at this rate, the Republicans could run ANYBODY.
Fuckin ANYBODY.
AND feature speakers at their 2012 National convention like a beefy oiled Limbaugh in loincloth butterdipping lobster chunks then flicked to a strait-jacketed Beck brought onstage by leash, all presented with gameshow hostess handwaves and sporadic assault rifle fire from Bachmann and Palin in conservative one-piece black-leather-yet-swastika-emblazoned swimwear.

Henh – …Obama?
The National Foundling? 😉 { mcat} Oh Obby’s in trouble. LOL.
Bucked off like a lawyer-turned-rodeo-clown.

Critics say the constitution is the government’s attempt to cement its power beyond its term, alleging that it eliminates the system of checks and balances, prevents Hungary’s eventual adoption of the euro, forces its Christian ideology on the country and limits civil liberties.

The new constitution’s preamble is laden with references to God, Christianity, the fatherland, the “Holy Crown of Hungary,” and traditional family values, raising opposition fears about the future rights of Hungary’s atheists, homosexuals and single-parent families.

However, the majority in parliament did not share these fears. Laszlo Kover, a Fidesz parliamentarian and speaker of the house welcomed the new basic law, saying it “acknowledges Christianity as the basis of our civilization but it ensures moral freedom.” . . . . . .

So.

At Thursday's debate, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren defended their Medicare for All plan. They faced criticism from several rivals, including Senator Amy Klobuchar, who described it as a "bad idea," and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who claimed the bill shows Sanders and Warren do not "trust the American people."

At the third presidential primary debate in Houston, Texas, senator and 2020 candidate Elizabeth Warren called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Warren also spoke about her stance on U.S. trade policy and how "our trade policy in America has been broken for decades."

After being questioned about the crisis in Venezuela, Senator Bernie Sanders defended his vision of democratic socialism. "I agree with what goes on in Canada and in Scandinavia: guaranteeing healthcare to all people as a human right. I believe that the United States should not be the only major country on Earth not to provide paid family and medical le […]

Debate moderator Jorge Ramos of Univision grilled former Vice President Joe Biden over the Obama administration's deportation record. Biden refused to answer whether he did anything to prevent Obama from deporting a record 3 million people.

A U.S. House of Representatives panel on Friday demanded internal emails, detailed financial information and other company records from top executives of Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc, Apple Inc, and Alphabet Inc's Google, widening the antitrust probe of Big Tech.

U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Friday asked a government watchdog to look into the Trump administration's decision to launch an antitrust probe into four automakers cooperating with California on tighter greenhouse gas emissions limits that Trump is trying to eliminate.

A lawyer for former FBI official Andrew McCabe pressed U.S. prosecutors on Friday to drop their politically sensitive case against him, citing reports that suggest they may be having trouble securing criminal charges.

Media

from Howl

I'm with you in Rockland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma
by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the
roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the
hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse
O skinny legions run outside O starry
spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is
here O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-
journey on the highway across America in tears
to the door of my cottage in the Western night

October 7 1955

"a remarkable collection of angelson one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure

Democrats…

Same as goddam fucking forever.
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.